Citadel Investment Group is seeking to launch a leveraged-loan-trading unit, Bloomberg reports. The hedge fund firm, which recently founded an investment-banking unit, unsuccessfully tried to recruit four members of Barclays Capital’s loan sales and trading team for the same.

Macquarie Group and Jefferies Group are also setting up operations for trading leveraged loans. These loans are used for funding corporate buyouts. Over $57.1 billion of the debt has been underwritten in 2009, down from $229.7 billion in the same period of 2008.